On Tuesday, it was a field mouse. Dead. Pest
presented the gift to me in the kitchen, her whiskers twitching with
satisfaction. I praised her - I believe in praising my pets for shows
of devotion - promptly scooped the rodent into a dustpan and flung it
out the back door. Pest, huntress by nature, scurried out after the
meat I was intending to waste. What must she have thought?

On Wednesday, it was a chipmunk. Still alive, albeit
with teeth marks in the nape of its neck. I caught Pest just as she
was passing through the dining room, stunned rodent hanging from her
jaws. I petted her, said some words of praise, and she let the
critter go. At which time it suddenly got unstunned and took off
across the dining room floor, feline hot on its tail. Then my other
two cats -Zooey and Yetti-joined in the chase. The chipmunk
disappeared among furniture, laundry baskets, boxes and miscellaneous
piles of junk my wife keeps strewed about the house. Back when I was
a bachelor, I kept my place neat and it was no problem reacquiring
the Catch of the Day. Now, however, there was tons of stuff
everywhere. Old stereos, boxes of books and bathroom supplies and
toys and God-knows-what-all. Not that I’m complaining. So there
was a chipmunk loose in the house. The cats would get it eventually.
I let the matter go.

On Thursday and Friday, it was dead moles. Or voles.
Or whatever. Anyway, I praised, scooped, and flung.

On Friday, though, ‘ole Pest really lived up to
her name. She brought in a live bat. Just as a storm rolled in. Quite
creepy. Not that I’m usually afraid of bats, but then I usually
don’t have one flying around inside my house. I got a paper
sack, which took awhile ‘cause all you ever get from the
grocery store now is plastic. Plus, the whole time I’m looking,
I’m also trying to keep my cats from jumping up and snagging
the poor creature. Somehow, I could leave a chipmunk to their
disposal, but not this bat. I got a paper grocery sack and started
chasing the bat around the house, and all the while, the cats are
having an absolute blast. They’re all jumping up after it, and
I’m grabbing them in mid-air before they can harm the poor bat,
and the bat is just going… well, bats. Diving, swooping,
flying in crazy circles, figure eights, and loop-de-loops.

Then, two things happened one right after the other:
first, Liz came home from work, tired and grumpy; second, there’s
a big clap of thunder and the lights flicker once, twice, then go
out. No problem for the bat, I suppose, as it gets around by sonar.
But now I’m running around with three frantic cats under my
arms looking for a flashlight. The bat is screeching, swooping, and
diving and my fur balls are busy liberating the flesh from my body
and Liz is stomping around the house yelling, “What the Hell is
going on?” The bat careened by her in the dark and she let out
a scream to curl your toenails. Finally, I found a flashlight,
dropped the felines, and clicked the switch, just in time to see the
bat flying right toward me like some winged demon. I swore, dropped
the flashlight, bumped into Liz, stepped on a tail, fell over
backwards, got stampeded by cats and tripped over by my
lovely-but-angry wife.

For all my efforts and frustration, the bat escaped
on its own, out the open kitchen door through which Pest had brought
it in to begin with. That had been Friday.

Saturday was worse. I thought that maybe Pest would
take a break, but instead she outdid herself. Liz was out shopping
and I was reading a Louis L’amour novel on the couch when I
heard the clanging of armor from the kitchen. Then a small voice
shouting, “Demon from Hell, go back to whence thee came!”
This, followed by neighing, whinnying, and a clattering of hooves on
linoleum.

Now what? I wondered, sticking a bookmark in place
and making for the kitchen. The other cats raced on ahead of me.

“Demons, stay back!” came that little
voice.

I stepped into the kitchen and suddenly found myself
taking a left turn from reality as I knew it. Pest was thwacking a
six-inch-high medieval knight about the floor with one paw, clanging
his armor but good. He raised his lance but Pest sent that sailing
with a single good swipe. Zooey and Yetti were having a ball chasing
the knight’s steed about. The charger’s hooves skidded
something terrible on the kitchen floor so that the poor beast kept
banging into the cupboard and once went sprawling.

I gaped, blinked hard several times, gasped, and took
a step back. Then I forced myself to take some slow, deep breaths and
am proud to report I got myself back together in relatively short
order.

“No, no, no! Bad cats!” I shouted, not
about to praise this kind of behavior, even if it was intended as a
show of devotion. Which I doubt it was. “Bad cats!”

But they paid me no mind. So, I went over and picked
Pest up, quite against her will. She rabbit-kicked me in the chest
and bounded back to the floor. I put a hand out to keep her away from
the knight. Then, while my attention was on Pest, a nasty, stabbing
pain bored into my heel. I turned and there’s the knight. While
I was dealing with Pest, he apparently had retrieved his lance and
was now driving it for all he’s worth right into the back of my
foot. And, to top it all off, he has the effrontery to call me a
demon from Hell!

I screamed and swore, visions of tetanus shots
dancing through my head. Pest took off after the steed, seeing that
the other two cats were having so much fun with it. Meanwhile, the
knight just kept driving that lance into my foot, like he’s
drilling for oil. Saturdays just aren’t supposed to go like
this! But oh well. I took care of the first order of business, which
was removing the lance from my flesh. The knight cursed me and
informed me that I was the spawn of Satan. I snatched him up while he
was fabricating more trivia about my lineage, careful not to hurt
him. He couldn’t quite stab me with the lance from this
position, so he contented himself with pounding my knuckles with his
armored hand. It hurt but I ignored the pain and went to pick up the
horse. The horse reared up and got me two good swipes on the forearm
with his front hooves. The knight guffawed and shouted praises to the
horse (another man who believes in praising a pet’s show of
devotion) and curses at me. Then Zooey made a jump for the knight. I
followed my first instinct and pulled the knight away from my cat’s
trajectory. Alas, that brought the knight closer to my face, which
gave him the opportunity to jab that lance right into my cheek. He
took full advantage of this opportunity. I screamed and dropped the
knight, who landed on the floor with a clang of armor and a whoop of
victory.

I swore quite loudly, which sent the cats cowering
for a moment. This gave the knight and his steed time to make their
escape. However, they did not exit through the open kitchen door as
the bat had sense enough to, but rather made for the dining room.
Then they crossed into the carpeted living room, where the charger
was able to get better traction.

The knight hopped up on his steed and they charged
into the master bedroom. They took refuge in a basket of laundry and
camped out among my wife’s lingerie. I overheard the knight
talking, saying to his horse, “I believe, my old friend, that
our travails have brought us at last to Shangri-la.”

That made for quite a Saturday.

On Sunday, Liz set out early for a bike ride and I
set out for the couch and another novel, this one an Elmore Leonard
thriller. I hadn’t read but a few pages when there was an
absolute commotion in the kitchen: snarling, growling, hissing and
every now and then a dull, heavy “thwok!” sound.

With a sigh, I put down my book and trudged in to see
what the matter was this time. I don’t think the cats carried
this creature in so much as herded it, as a group effort, and
carefully, at that. It lumbered forth slowly, deliberately. It looked
like a tiny army tank with legs and spikes jutting out from its body,
and a thick tail armed with a dense club on the end, which is what
was making that “thwok!” sound. “Thwok!” Its
club slammed down on the floor and the cats all jumped back. “Thwok!”
It put a crack in my wastebasket.

I recognized it as some sort of dinosaur, even though
not one made popular by the media, like a velociraptor. It plodded
along, menacing the cats as much as they menaced it. This gave me
time to grab my dinosaur reference book and look it up. Ankylosaurus,
is what it was. Or, rather, a Lilliputian version, as the actual
dinosaur measured ten meters long and weighed in at a hefty seven
tons, whereas this guy was only about the length of my hand.

Ankylosaurus lived 65 million years ago, during the
late Cretaceous period. But apparently they had not gone extinct,
just gotten much smaller. My book showed ankylosauruses by a lake. I
picked the creature up-“thwok!” went his club on my
knuckles-and carried him off to a nearby pond. By the time I got
there, my hand was scraped and bleeding.

I was back on the couch finishing my novel when Liz
returned from her ride, glistening with sweat.

“Your darling feline was chasing something
around the field out back,” she said in a mock-accusing voice.

“Our darling feline,” I corrected.

“Oh, dear, you hurt your hand,” she
cooed, seeing the ravages from the mini ankylosaurus.

“My hand’s fine. C’mere, you know
how much I like the way you look in Lycra.”

“I’m all sweaty.”

“I know. I’m hoping to make you sweat
some more.”

I grabbed her and pulled her down to the couch.

A few minutes into our tryst, the oddest assortment
of sounds came from the kitchen: an electronic hum, banging,
crashing, beeping and unearthly musical tones. A moment later, a tiny
disc flew by, lit from within. Our darling felines were in hot
pursuit.